I am so disappointing to hear when PM Najib announced during his budget speech that seven big infrastructure projects such as KL Outer Ring Highway costs about 1.6 billion, MRT second phase project costs 23 billion and so on but none of them was introduced in my constituency Kota Kinabalu city and Sabah as a whole.
Despite KK city was facing a lot of urbanized problem such as lacking of parking lots, lack of road connection and congested traffic condition, and I have been raising these issues in the parliament sitting, but it is disappointing to learn that the federal government has totally ignore the needs of KK people and urgency of KK problems.
The seven infrastructure projects were given allocation about 50 billion. I am so keen to see if federal government ready to build LRT or monorail in KK city or even the promised Tuaran-Kudat Coastal Highway, but apparently it has failed to impress me.
Also, I would like to strongly condemn Najib and the budget who mislead the public on the announcement of Pan-Borneo Highway. In fact it was already announced in budget 2014 and it was estimated cost 23 billion to complete the construction. However, I was shocked to hear Najib re-announce the construction of Pan-Borneo Highway and the cost was climbed from 23 billion to 27 billion in Budget 2015.
From the budget speech, I quote page 26 that Najib said “to increase the number of Bumiputra entrepeneurs, several initiatives will be implemented including:”, the fourth phrase said that “Expanding carve-out and compete programme through meritocracy for Government and privatized projects including MRT second phase and Pan-Borneo Highway. Is it mean that the government has planned to privatize the Pan-Borneo Highway project? I want to ask Najib and the government that is privatization will be implemented for Pan-Borneo Highway and would it be tolled like North-South Highway at Peninsula Malaysia?
Besides, I also want to query the government on the allocation for price standardization programme which is purposely to standardize the price of goods between East and West Malaysia. In budget 2014, this programme was allocated 331 million to subsidize the basic goods and transportation, but in budget 2015 only 262 million was prepared for this purpose. It declined 49 million or 14 percent of allocation.
I have reiterated that to achieve “1 nation 1 price” goal, the government should resolve the problem from the root of problem which is Cabotage policy. Obviously if the allocation 331 million was not helping to lower the price of goods in Sabah, and I can say 262 million allocation would not help at all as well.
Lastly, the public transportation programme was mentioned in Najib’s budget speech but there is no any initiative done in Kota Kinabalu city. I will take part in the debate session in next week and urge the government to take care of KK public transport policy and improve the livelihood in Kota Kinabalu.
I hope Najib would reconsider and restructure the budget and to meet the needs of KK and Sabah as a whole.